Daniel Exe wrote:Upgrading a phpBB2 style to phpBB3 shouldn't take any longer than 3-4 hours if you're basing it on subSilver2.

My theme is not based on subSilver2. I don't really want to devote 3-4 hours at this point. Personally, I think that 3-4 hours is a considerable length of time to spend. I would rather be using those 3-4 hours for discussions. (See? Here I am in this forum, rather than using the time to upgrade my own forum.)

Highway of Life wrote:So really it’s the “design” that you believe would take the longest? -- the upgrade itself should take less than an hour on most boards. And depending on how experienced you are with editing styles, if you’re good, not more than a day... if not, well... that might be your slowdown there, but really, your complaint is not how long the update would take, but how long it would take you to edit the style how you like it, correct?

First of all, none of what I have written in this thread should be construed as a complaint. The subject of this thread is "What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you?" I am merely answering the question.

It makes no difference to me whether the upgrading of the design or the board is what will take the time. Both WILL take time. I'm just not prepared to take the time and I'm not prepared to subject my forumites to the "out of the box" looks of phpBB3 while I get rid of the various unwanted features. As far as I'm concerned, making sure that the design doesn't change is part of the upgrade. I don't really want any of my forumites to even notice that there has been an upgrade.

Yes, it's true. I'm lazy and reactionary. I'll take my chances with continuing to run phpBB2. Who knows? Maybe I'll just shut the thing down completely.

- Reactionary (So... have you backed up your files lately? This is even more important if you're staying with phpBB2)

Being the administrator of a website, you should expect that some time will need to be devoted to maintenance. If you cannot find some time because you would rather be spending it on discussions, then it might be better to join an existing discussion board rather than running your own.

When phpBB2 was released, most people were still running Windows 2000 or Windows Me. Are most people still running those operating systems? Of course not.

As phpBB2 still does what I want it to do I'd be perfectly happy continuing to use without support from phpBB.com, but with no commitment and/or action elsewhere to address the (potential) security and compatibility issues I would be stupid not to bid farewell to an old friend...

which does mean that I no longer have to ponder updating all my styles. Due to their age and my change in focus, there is probably less work in porting them to phpBB3. The new templating system gives a whole new level of flexibility (but isn't without its shortcomings) to create what I couldn't do without modifying phpBB2.

Daz

Please and Thank You works wonders...
I reserve the right to post illogical (and totally wrong) replies. ...It's the subtle perfection in attention to detail that makes your work rock the way it does - cdkrg
Think simple - it's not necessarily what you draw that matters, it's what you perceive - DazNote:ForumImages<dot>com is no longer anything to do with me.

I agree with Daz. One of the great strengths of open source software is the freedom to fork. In this case, since phpBB 2 is formally retired, it would even be possible to have a positive fork in place -- one not resulting from some controversy or genuine neglect, but a natural, healthy fork.

If there is no interest in the phpBB 2 code base itself sufficient to drive a fork, then the end of that code base has already come. How board admins react to that is entirely up to them and their communities, of course, but as things stand, phpBB 2's retirement means to me that it's time to move on.

Marshalrusty wrote:When phpBB2 was released, most people were still running Windows 2000 or Windows Me. Are most people still running those operating systems? Of course not.

Of course, I expect that some time is needed for maintenance. This is a given. But an upgrade shouldn't HAVE to mean a complete and entire revamp of styles. If I buy a new furnace for my house built near the beginning of the 20th century, I won't have to tear down all the walls, repaint and re-wallpaper....

(I am currently running WinXP - having started with Win95, gone to Win2K and a previous WinXP. The planned obsolescence of computers and their programs is my biggest pet peeve. One of my favourite programs is a very simple very small in bytesize shareware alarm clock that we got with Win95. It is unfortunately no longer available; it is still one of the most useful things on this computer. When this WinXP crashes (which it will, from previous experience with Win) and we purchase a new version of Win (hope we can manage to miss out on Vista... having rejected it as being big and overblown) I feel quite certain that this lovely little alarm clock will still function.)

- Reactionary (So... have you backed up your files lately? This is even more important if you're staying with phpBB2)

rreptile wrote:Of course, I expect that some time is needed for maintenance. This is a given. But an upgrade shouldn't HAVE to mean a complete and entire revamp of styles. If I buy a new furnace for my house built near the beginning of the 20th century, I won't have to tear down all the walls, repaint and re-wallpaper....

In this case, you're upgrading to a better house, but are trying to take the furnace, walls and paint with you

rreptile wrote:(I am currently running WinXP - having started with Win95, gone to Win2K and a previous WinXP. The planned obsolescence of computers and their programs is my biggest pet peeve. One of my favourite programs is a very simple very small in bytesize shareware alarm clock that we got with Win95. It is unfortunately no longer available; it is still one of the most useful things on this computer. When this WinXP crashes (which it will, from previous experience with Win) and we purchase a new version of Win (hope we can manage to miss out on Vista... having rejected it as being big and overblown) I feel quite certain that this lovely little alarm clock will still function.)

As for software being EoL'ed, please read up on the Software Development Lifecycle, or the SDLC. It explains why software is dropped. Everybody does it. Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Mozilla, MySQL, PHP, and so on. It is a normal part of the software development process.